The second most important day in any football gamer’s calendar is here: New FIFA demo day! If you’re a fan of the series, you’ll know by now that the most important day is release day.
EA Sports launched the playable demo of FIFA 13 last night, initially on PC and then on Xbox 360, followed by PS3 last – much to PSN users’ dismay. As with every year, the demo is a pretty hefty download due to it containing full graphics, six playable teams and an exhibition mode game to play.
The playable teams are: Arsenal, Manchester City, Juventus, AC Milan or Borussia Dortmund – Oddly Barcelona is missing this year for some reason, despite Mr Messi being on the game’s front cover.
Unlike previous FIFA demos, this one adds in graphical demonstrations of some of the game’s new features, such as EA Sports Football Club Match Day, which drives real world results, fixtures and news from the world’s top football leagues into the game itself.
This feature isn’t just a menu option, and is linked in with the games you play. Commentary will feature the latest news, with Andy Townsend bleating on about a player who’s been left on the bench due to his forthcoming exit from the club during the transfer window.
One of the new features that we’ve been most excited about is the mini games and training exercises – things like free kick accuracy with targets and so on. The demo features one of these games, which involves taking penalties with eight red and white targets dotted across the goal line. The idea is to take down these targets in order to achieve a high score, earning you a bronze, silver or gold medal. Incidentally, we reckon the slightly tweaked penalty taking method is much better than last year’s.
The game itself is smooth and looks great, although the new first touch system is going to take some getting used to. It’s much more realistic, but can cause frustration when your player naffs up a perfect cross-field ball, only for the opposition to nick it off his toe.
The new FIFA 13 demo is available to download now for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3. Xbox 360 users who have the newer 4GB console will probably need to free up some space to make room, as the demo is a good 1.45GB in size.
Let us know your thoughts on our comments below or via our @Gadget_Helpline Twitter page or Official Facebook group.